UFC Undisputed 2010 Walkthrough & Strategy Guide

As with last year's game, UFC Undisputed 2010 is pretty flipping complex. Sure, any random gamer can pick up a controller, slap buttons like a trained walrus, and throw random punches that might have some semblance of an impact. But the instant you find yourself flat on your back, your face being demolished by Shogun Rua, you'll be asking yourself: "What did I do wrong, other than relying on urine therapy for my training?"

As such, we recommend that you complete the tutorial for basic control information. The tutorial does not include fight theory and situational advice, but that's what we're here for. Still, completing the tutorial—and probably revisiting it after you do a few matches—will help you figure out what's going on and train your fingers to the sometimes-demanding control scheme.

This section of the guide will talk in generalities with controls; our primary focus here is to talk about why you want to do things, rather than how. Note that when we do mention controls, we'll give the Xbox 360 input first, then the PS3 input.

Rule 1

We come to a part of a guide that we know upsets quite a few casual gamers who just want to punch something. This sentence is bolded because it really is the key to winning fights, especially online, especially against players who know what they're doing, and what separates the pros from the scrubs:

To succeed in UFC Undisputed 2010, you must know all aspects of your fighter.

...Simple, right? The thing is, many people—especially players who might not be hardcore UFC fans—will arbitrarily switch among fighters they like, perhaps by looks or name, without figuring out exactly why they are good or bad. Ratings in UFC Undisputed 2010 are more complicated than they were last time around, where a fighter's mere position relative to his opponent can alter his power.

Take light heavyweight fighter Dan Henderson. Blowing up his stats, we see that his Standing Strikes rating is 82... but his Standing Kicks is 67. Further, his ground striking and clinch striking are 83. This tells us that kicks, while they might be decent for creating some space and disrupting opponent timing, are nothing compared to his fists. Also, he does his best striking while clinched or in an advantageous position on the ground. With a Takedown rating of 80, it combines that a decent strategy to use as Henderson is to take the opponent down as quickly as possible and punch away, and remaining punching (and only punching) when you get back to your feet.

As you get to know your fighter's strengths and weaknesses in pure rating formulas, you'll also want to see and practice his techniques. Unfortunately, there's no way to pull these up out of a match. When you're fighting, you can pause the game, go to "Action List," then scroll through the various situational stances and figure out the exact buttons to press to get the exact movements you want. For example, you'll find that Lyoto Machida has a signature head kick by holding LB/L1 and pressing B/Circle. You'll want to practice it enough to get comfortable enough with it, and to know its range.

The best way to get better and more effective is to stick with one fighter, no matter who he is, and practice, practice, practice. Find the ranges and best attack patterns with your attacks, develop strategies based on your fighter's ratings, and you will find your best success. Practice: it's Rule #1, and should be what you do if you want to play competitively.

Striking

In real-life, matches on any given card and in any given period of history typically result in a fairly balanced number of wins by knockout, submission, and judges' decision. In UFC Undisputed 2010, most matches will end by knockout, some by submission, and very few by decision. As such, striking should probably be the skill you focus on the most.

Striking is, of course, pretty simple to understand: hit a face button, and you shoot a fist or foot out to smartly smack your opponent. Enough smacks, your opponent's face resembles hamburger, and you get another notch in the W column.

Striking comes with several modifier buttons, the basics of which are located on the left shoulder of the controller. Holding LT/L2 while striking aims the strike lower. When punching, that means aiming the punch to the gut or ribs. When kicking, it depends on your fighter's specific talents. That is, while a kick boxer may have plenty of head-aimed kicks and modifying that turns them into body-aimed roundhouses, a boxer may have weak midsection-aimed kicks and modifying them turns them into shin kicks or sweeps.

Confused? Well, all this is further compounded by other factors, such as distance. A fighter in close may throw elbows when you use "Right Punch" (which is Y/Triangle), but may do a right hook from a step away, and a right straight from a step beyond that. Further, pressing toward your opponent also modifies your strike: in general, it makes your attack a bit more powerful, but a bit slower and theoretically easier to counter or block.

The other major modifier is the new Fighting Techniques button, located at LB/L1. Hold this and hit a strike, and you might attack with a special technique unique to that fighter. Or, you'll do nothing but the default attack, if you don't have it trained up yet (in Career Mode, for example). This attack is the same regardless of distance and whether you're using the left stick, but its damage seems to change based on whether you used it right.

For example, my career boxer learned a technique early called a ducking right hook, executed by holding LB/L1 and hitting Y/Triangle. With a little bob of his head, he ducks a hair, then comes up with a right hook to the face. That's all well and good, but when used when I'm toe-to-toe, the attack tended to be damaging but weak: it was best used when I was a step back, when fist met cheek and snapped my opponent's head sharply to his right. Being farther out would mean I'd scrape the nose or miss completely.

Striking from a standing position is all well and good, and will typically end up resulting in knockouts. However, in the early rounds of the fight, striking from standing will merely drop the opponent's (invisible) health bar, but won't result in an early stoppage unless you completely dominate him. To do serious damage, you'll need to do strikes from the clinch or the ground.

We'll detail things more in a moment, but to initiate a clinch, you just need to flick the right stick toward the opponent. To initiate a takedown, you'll either need to do a throw from a clinch, or hold LT/L2 and press toward the opponent. Assuming you get control, you need to reposition yourself to get the most advantage, then punch or knee like crazy.

Attacks from the clinch or while mounted are automatically more powerful even before we get into ratings, so if you do have high ratings on top of being in an advantageous position, you will quickly end the fight. For example, if you get in a clinch and get the advantage, the face buttons for kicks turn into sharp knee attacks that will stiffly strike the opponent's stomach or forehead. So, not only are you doing major damage, he can't attack back unless he's good at reversing the clinch in the first place (or if you make a mistake).

This should illustrate that merely striking—that is, merely striking while standing—probably won't be enough to get you consistent wins, definitely not against good opponents. You'll need to augment your skills in other areas, such as striking from the clinch, to keep your opponents off-balance. Mix up your attacks as well: executing a high strike means your opponent can counter with a quick takedown, so throwing in a few leg kicks or gut punches (that would also strike them in the face if they tried a takedown counter) will make them think twice.

Avoiding strikes usually means staying out range, either because you're moving too fast or too often, or blocking. To block, you hold RB/R1 to block high, or RT/R2 to block midsection and low attacks. No block is invincible and, typically, the attack will eventually get through if you just stand there, but blocking a combo will allow you to retaliate and possibly get an advantage.

Blocking is an art of its own. Blocking high will keep you in the fight: you can't be knocked out from strikes to the body or legs no matter how powerful they are. However, suffering midsection strikes will lower your stamina (and thereby your own striking power) as the fight goes on, and suffering leg strikes will slow you down and make it more difficult to dodge. In general you'll want to block high, but watch your opponent: if he seems to be attacking low a lot, adjust as needed.

You can block using the same buttons if you find yourself on the ground, but you're still at a massive disadvantage. You'll want to try to get out from under your opponent as quickly as possible, though blocking might save you a bit of time and damage while you plan your escape.

Note that we mentioned leg kicks earlier, by using LT/L2 and A/X or B/Circle: leg kicks don't cause much damage on their own, but can be chained together with other moves. For example, if your opponent is going for a midrange or high kick, kicking his remaining leg out from under him will cause him to fall on his back, from which you can quickly get to a mount. Also, after enough damage to your opponent's legs, he'll become very easily taken down with the double leg takedown move everyone has (LT/L2 and right stick toward your opponent). It helps soften your opponent up, and you should use them more when you are in a five-round fight.